Mary McCauley & Karen McCourt studynet.herts.ac.uk/go/asu

Creating Academic Skills e-resources to Increase Flexible Learning

Opportunities & Promote Independent Learning

Mary McCauley & Karen McCourtwww.studynet.herts.ac.uk/go/asu

1www.studynet.herts.ac.uk/go/asu

Overview of this workshop

• Present the findings of an ASU research project

• Opportunity to use technologies to record a relevant podcast

www.studynet.herts.ac.uk/go/asu 2

Aim of the project

Unique homepage hits since 20/09/11: 28,747


Methodology• Research findings from UHBS show that students like and

find podcasts useful (Mc Court (2011); Seed & Hyseni (2011))

• Online questionnaires to UHBS staff and students to

identify their academic skills e-resources requirements- 83 staff responses- 101 student responses

Next: Focus groups and questionnaires to UHBS staff and students to gain feedback on the newly created resources


Findings from UHBS staff• Support face-to-face time; reinforce & deepen knowledge & understanding.• Videocasts certainly reinforces learning; students have the opportunity of using it

at their own place, time (& pace)• Add flexible & accessible resources to their study• Invaluable for overseas students…can listen & watch over & over again• Meets the needs of students with learning difficulties & discussion of sometimes

difficult key concepts helps with understanding• Students learn in a variety of ways & resources available in a variety of formats

supports this• Adds variety to learning; Increases engagement• Provide opportunities for better revision• Videocasts are visual…therefore useful for a generation heavily influenced by

TV/Videos… make lesson more exciting & meaningful• They tell me they like them


Findings from UHBS students• More interactive so more memorable• Students may learn better by being proactive• More interesting & easier to understand• Allows for flexible learning; very, very practical; Audio can be transferred to a phone so used

on the go• Can go through the pod/video cast yourself pausing it at crucial times• On an online course…useful to alternate reading with other forms of acquiring information…

listening to or seeing someone makes it a bit more personal.• I take information in better when I hear it then reading the lecture notes myself; More

engaging that just reading slides• Cater to a wider range of learning styles & can help to make learning/revising more interesting• When you put music on repeat on your ipod or mp3, eventually you learn some of the words…

same with audio podcasts


E-resources will improve the ‘student experience’


E-resources will help meet different learning styles


What’s next to support flexible and independent learning?

Our Statistics folder contains videos for beginners in SPSS:

• http://www.studynet2.herts.ac.uk/ptl/common/asu.nsf/Teaching+Documents/3941E76B2AC843C4802579CF003BED66?OpenDocument

• http://www.studynet2.herts.ac.uk/ptl/common/asu.nsf/Teaching+Documents/7444EE395DD286C3802579CF003BF23F?OpenDocument

• Working on:


Now, over to you…


1. Discuss areas of graduate skills / academic skills / feedback… you’d like your students to work on.

2. Prepare a 3 minute recording

3. Swap roles!

In pairs/ groups of 3…

These recordings will be sent to you by Friday 11th May (state your name on camera)


Thank You!LTI training available:•Using Flip cameras•Audacity•Camtasia

For More Information:Mary McCauley: [email protected] Karen McCourt: [email protected]

ASU website: http://studynet.herts.ac.uk/go/asu (we’d appreciate your feedback)
